Finger-pointing continues in Bordentown City website mystery

BORDENTOWN CITY -- Officials here believe they've ferreted out a clue to who is responsible for an unofficial website about Mayor James E. Lynch Jr., located online at www.BordentownMayorReallySucks.com.

According to Police Chief Matthew J. Simmons III, a relative of city resident Peter Ciarrocca told a police lieutenant that Ciarrocca and his business partner, city resident David Berton, are the anonymous faces behind the website.

Ciarrocca is a former city housing inspector who resigned from his position in 2008. Berton is the husband of Deputy Mayor Heather Cheesman. The two men run a custom screen printed shirt and photography business together.

Both denied involvement with the website when reached by phone recently.

Mayor James E. Lynch Jr.

The statement fingering Ciarrocca and Berton was given to the police lieutenant during a recent call for service regarding a family matter, said Simmons, who added that his department is not investigating who is responsible for the website because its creators aren't doing anything illegal.

Lynch, who as the city's police commissioner reads all police reports, confirmed that he had seen the account of the service call, including the claim that Ciarrocca and Berton are responsible for the website.

Ciarrocca said recently that he may be filing litigation, but would not say against whom or give any details except that the matter has to do with First Amendment rights.

"I have nothing to say about the mayor or the chief of police -- nothing good to say, let's just say that," Ciarrocca said. "I have nothing to do with the website. Chalk this up as more intimidation and harassment on their part."

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He would not elaborate on the kind intimidation and harassment he believed had occurred.

The website, which attacks Lynch for dilapidated housing in the city and an unannounced change in the street-sweeping schedule, also takes the mayor to task for claiming that state police and the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office are continuing to investigate a suspicious April incident at his home.

The site refers viewers to public-information requests made by Libertarian John Paff, along with responses from the state police and county prosecutor's office indicating that they had never investigated the matter.

On April 19, the mayor has said, men claiming to be detectives -- at least one of them armed -- approached his adult daughter outside their family's home and questioned her. The men, who did not disclose who they worked for, left when the mayor's daughter said her father would be arriving home momentarily.

Lynch believes the incident was orchestrated by the creators of www.BordentownMayorReallySucks.com as an intimidation technique.

The mayor reported the occurrence to the city police department the night it happened, Simmons said, and local police were sent to Lynch's home, and then to search the perimeter of the city and nearby Fieldsboro, for the men.

The police department went on to contact outside agencies, including the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office and the state police, to ask if they had dispatched any officers into Bordentown City that night, Simmons said. A spokesman for the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office confirmed that the office was "notified of an incident involving Mayor Lynch's daughter in Bordentown City in April 2010."

None of the departments contacted reported sending any officers into Bordentown that evening, Simmons said.

Once that was established, he said, "There was no real reason to do a major investigation, because you don't have a crime."

According to Lynch, the important issue isn't whether agencies are investigating, but that the incident happened at all.

He added that he's still investigating on his own.

"If I find out who did this," Lynch said, "I'll do everything I can to find out why they were at my house questioning my daughter. I'd say that would be continuing (the investigation)."